Waiting for Muriel

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Velma the Vegan Vampire chapter 7 continues from Friday:

THIS STORY IS NOT SUITABLE FOR READERS UNDER 12

She got to Andy’s place before Muriel and found him in his natural habitat – surrounded by computers. She watched him tapping away at one keyboard before suddenly rolling his fancy ergonomic task chair to the next one, doing something there, assessing it and then moving to a third at the other end of the table.

She startled him with a hello and he knocked over his cold tea.

“Michael Bentine!” he exclaimed and grabbed the kitchen roll to mop it up.

Velma laughed, “Michael Bentine? What?”

Andy grinned, “I’m trying not to swear,” he explained. He tossed the soggy paper towel into the bin and looked back at his screen. “I’m glad you’re here anyway, we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“What are you doing?”

He tapped a few more keys before looking up. “Let’s wait for Muriel, and then I’ll explain everything.”

Velma nodded. “Is Muriel okay?” she asked nervously.

Andy shrugged. “I think so.”

“Are you?”

“I am actually,” he smiled. “I really am because – well, it was a lot – what you told us. But I know you, and you’re not a murderer. You’re a predator, sure, but not a monster. It’s not murder coz it’s primal. You’re like a tiger or a polar bear.”

Velma was relieved. “Yes. Thank you.”

“So that’s part of what inspired me to come up with this -” He gestured towards the laptop in front of him but then stopped mid-sentence. “No, I’ll tell you when Muriel gets here.”

Velma tried to look at his screen but he closed the laptop. “Is that new?” she asked.

“Yes, it is. I thought I should get a new one for this, and only use it for this, so that – let’s wait for Muriel.”

“What’s on these then?” Velma stepped around the table to look at the other two open laptops, only to have him close them too before she could make sense of anything. “I know,” she said, “let’s wait for Muriel.” She looked at the clock. It was 8.45. “Or, you could tell me what you’re thinking now, and then we could both – no? No, let’s wait for Muriel.”

At 8.47, Muriel arrived. She said hello to Andy and offered Velma a tired smile. “What are we playing tonight then guys?”

“Tonight,” said Andy, “we’re going to be working out our next move.”

“I got the impression you’d already worked it out,” said Velma.

“Yes, I have. I have but I thought we should discuss it to make sure we’re all on the same page. Make sure we all agree that this is the best way forward.” His friends nodded. “Because if we get it wrong, there could be disastrous consequences for all of us.”

“Okay okay,” Muriel tried to move things along, “enough with the melodramatics! It’s serious. We get it. Now tell us what you’ve worked out!”

“Right,” Andy began, “so Velma, you’ve kept your vampireness secret for, what – forty years?”

Velma nodded.

“And you use your special skills, your circumstance you might say, to help the animals.” He paused for confirmation which came in the form of another nod from Velma. “So, in forty years, have you seen any improvement in the way animals are treated? As a result of your, er, activism?” He paused for a moment before continuing. “Do you think the population is learning not to exploit animals? Not to consume them or enslave them? Not to kill them for profit or pleasure?”

Velma shook her head. “No,” she admitted, “I haven’t made any difference to the big picture.”

“And why do you think that is?”

“I’ve taken a lot of killers out of the picture though,” she said defensively, “I made sure those people couldn’t kill any more.”

“True, but not what I’m getting at,” he said with eyebrows raised. “My point is that because you’ve been -“

“Secretive!” Muriel blurted out, “because she’s been secretive, no one learns anything from her kills. No one tries to protect themselves by not hurting animals, because they don’t know that hurting animals can get them killed!”

“Exactly!”

“Yes, okay, so what you’re saying is that by protecting myself, my identity, I have done nothing to effect real change.”

Andy shook his head. “No, Velma, I’m not saying that. You did the best you could and you saved countless animals who would have died at the hands of the people you killed. What else could you do? If you had been open about who you were and what you were doing you would have been stopped. Decades ago probably.” He waited for nods from his audience before continuing. “But things are different now. Now, we have the internet!”

Muriel and Velma looked at each other and smiled.

“What are we going to do?” Muriel asked.

“We’re going to tell the world!” Andy announced. “That is, I’m going to tell the world.” He smiled. “I’m going to use encrypted software, on an encrypted browser, to communicate with news organisations using SECURE DR-” he paused. “Basically, it’ll be anonymous. They won’t be able to trace the communication back to me and you’ll be safe. We’ll be safe.”

“What are you going to tell them? They’re not going to believe -“

“They will believe it because you’re going to tell me everything you can remember about when, where and who you’ve killed. It’s gotta be in the thousands hasn’t it? I guess you can’t remember -“

“I’ve had to kill at least five people a week, for thirty nine years and seven months -” she did the maths in her head, “that’s more than ten thousand people,” Velma daren’t look at her friends’ faces, “and I remember every single one of them.”

After a short pause Andy replied. “And that’s what we’ll tell them. That’s how we’ll prove to them that this is not a hoax. With ten thousand-plus names -“

“I don’t know their names,” Velma interrupted. “Well, except Doug.”

Muriel’s eyes widened but she decided that was a question for later. Or maybe it was better she didn’t know.

Andy continued. “Well, that probably doesn’t matter. If you know places and dates, male or female, they’ll be able to verify that those people died of bloodless. At least the ones who died in the last twenty years anyway. And they’ll also be able to tell that those people were involved in animal cruelty in one way or another, directly or indirectly.”

“And we’ll tell them why they were killed,” Muriel said excitedly, “that the vampire was protecting their future victims, that the vampire doesn’t kill vegans! And that’s how we’ll teach people to change their ways! They’ll stop eating meat and drinking milk and fishing and hunting and vivisecting and trapping and confining – because they don’t want to die!” She paused for breath and smiled. “That’s how we’ll make the world vegan!”

“My thoughts exactly,” Andy smiled. “Now I’ll show you what I’ve been doing.”

While she waited for him to restart his new laptop, Velma felt the need to say something quietly, just to Muriel. To see where Muriel’s head was at, find out if she understood like Andy did. She spoke so quietly that Muriel almost didn’t hear her. “I know it’s a lot, ten thousand people.”

Muriel looked at her thoughtfully. “Ten thousand serial killers,” she clarified. Then she hugged her friend. “You did want you had to do Velma, I understand that now.”

**

Come back tomorrow for the first instalment of Chapter 8 😀

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